Cold Case - Dr. Alan Gregory 08 - Stephen White - English

What if mere mortals could meet their Gods and learn theanswers to life's most mysterious questions? Now they can.

Imagine a planet with two blazing suns. A world inhabited bymortals with flaming red hair, saffron colored skin, and violet eyes. A placewhere extreme and often violent weather conditions force the people undergroundwhere they will be safe...until the next furious storm strikes. This strangeland is El Sod-A-Por, the ill-favored one, and in the far distance sits theGreen Mountain, home of the Gods—Gods who have no mercy. But everything changeswhen a fearless young man, Far-Awn, defies his father's warnings and travelstirelessly, in search of a star-shaped opalescent flower.

In this, the eighth Alan Gregory thriller, theColorado-based clinical psychologist and his wife, Boulder Assistant DistrictAttorney Lauren Crowder, are asked to assist a private organization known asLocard. Comprised of former and current prosecutors, federal law enforcementagents, and forensic specialists, the group (named after the legendary19th-century French detective Edmond Locard) specializes in providingassistance to local police in solving "cold cases," i. e., unsolvedcases that have been open for an especially long time.

In this instance, Locard is investigating the murder ofteenagers Tamara Franklin and Mariko Hamamoto, two close friends whodisappeared from their homes in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, one cold Novemberevening in 1988. The girls' bodies were discovered a few months later when thespringtime thaw melted the snowbank in which their killer had hidden theircorpses. Because the bodies had been mutilated (Tami's body was found sans ahand, Mariko's was missing the toes of one foot), local police sought anopportunistic killer, either a serial killer or a drifter, an approach thatproved unsuccessful.

Asked to perform a "psychological autopsy,"Gregory conducts interviews with several people connected to the case,including the girls' parents, siblings, and friends. His inquiries also bringhim into contact with Mariko's psychologist, Dr. Raymond Welle. Welle has alsoknown tragedy: Four years after the girls' disappearance, Welle's wife Gloriawas apparently murdered by another of his patients, the severely depressedBrian Sample. The crime drew national headlines and propelled Welle into thepublic eye, first gaining him a syndicated talk show, then a Senate seat.Suspecting that Welle knows more about the case than he lets on, Gregorydoggedly pursues the Senator.

Gregory's odyssey into the past affects him in varying ways.Of course, there's the thrill of the hunt, the intellectual challenge, and thesatisfaction of bringing a criminal to justice. But that's not all, as Gregorybecomes involved on a very personal level. His many interviews bring home ahard fact to the psychologist, namely that human beings inflict great damage oneach other every day. He's reminded that murder has a ripple effect,irrevocably changing the lives of both survivors and victims. Gregory'spersonal life is also impacted by the investigation, as he becomes the targetof forces anxious to conceal the truth. Touchingly, his thoughts in moments ofperil always turn to his pregnant wife, and how he now has even more to livefor than before.

If I had to choose one word to describe this novel, thatword would be intimate, in the sense that the reader's involvement in thenarrative increases as Gregory digs deeper in his search for the truth. Ofcourse, White pays a lot of attention to Gregory and Lauren Crowder; aftereight novels, they feel like old friends. But White also lavishes a great dealof attention on the rest of his cast -- supporting characters are givensufficient substance to keep them interesting, from Kimber Lister, the somewhatpompous, agoraphobic leader of Locard, to family friend A. J. Simes, a retiredFBI psychologist who, like Crowder, suffers from multiple sclerosis.

That's not to say that everything's perfect, however. Forinstance, the answer to the riddle Gregory faces is so complex that, once theperpetrators are revealed, it takes page upon page of exposition to explaintheir actions and motivations, causing one to wonder why they don't just shootGregory and be done with it. This is only a minor criticism, however, renderedinconsequential by the air of intimacy and immediacy White creates. Cold Caseis an arresting, exciting piece of work, the perfect way to while away somecold winter nights.

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olensia

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